TODAY IN HISTORY

1492 Italian explorer Christopher Columbus arrives in the Canary Islands on his first voyage across the Atlantic, looking for a passage to India.

1784 The British House of Commons passes the Transportation Bill, empowering the government to prescribe, by Order-in-Council, any place it considered appropriate for a penal colony.

1788 A pistol duel is fought between NSW surgeon-general John White and assistant surgeon William Balmain.

1884 Australian batsman Billy Murdoch scores the first double century in Test cricket when he completes an innings of 211 in the third Test against England at The Oval.

1928 The first non-stop trans-Australian flight is made in the Southern Cross by pilot Charles Kingsford Smith, navigator Harold Litchfield and McWilliams, when they arrive in Perth after flying from Point Cook, near Melbourne.

1960 The world’s first communications satellite, Echo 1, is launched by the US from Cape Canaveral.

1964 Author of James Bond novels, Ian Fleming, dies of heart disease at the age of 56.

2000 The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sinks in the Bering Sea after two explosions in a weapons bay, 118 sailors die.

2017 A Nazi sympathiser drives a car into antiracist protesters at the “Unite The Right” rally in

Charlottesville Virginia, killing one woman and injuring several others.

2018 The Parker Solar Probe is finally launched. Its mission is to get close to the sun to study the physics of its corona.